Memory brushes the same years
by redtrees7
Summary: A few days after Halloween, our hero-turned-suburban-parent sees some familiar faces and lets memories wash over him. "Once so adept at banishing the night's images, Mr. Potter rubbed his face and tried to shake the lingering sense of loss." Cannon compliant and mostly epilogue compliant.


JKR owns characters and Simon and Garfunkel own the title.

Cold November wind was the only thing disrupting the dark silence of a London suburb. It was just before dawn, and headlights from a muggle garbage truck glistened on the wet street. Its driver paused along his familiar rout; the driveway at the end of 394 Wisteria Avenue was empty, as always. He frequently wondered where they put their garbage every week and why they shunned the city's service.

Most of the world wasn't awake yet, but inside the unusual house, Mr. Potter hadn't slept well. His lower back pained him as winter closed in, and the fleeting wisps of his dream suggested that this wasn't the only reason for his restlessness. Once so adept at banishing the night's images, he rubbed his face and tried to shake the lingering sense of loss.

Leaving Mrs. Potter to sleep, he eased out of bed and gathered his robes. In the years since their youngest left for Hogwarts, mornings had followed a quiet routine and his tea was brewed with over an hour to spare. He took his earl grey without sugar. When he dropped the teabag into the compost, he missed the bin and stared at the soggy mound on the floor for a rather long time. Though the dark kitchen was warm and comfortable with happy memories, he had felt foggy and distant since waking, unable to shake the remnants of his dream. Fancying a walk to clear his head before work, he finished his tea and transfigured his robes into a muggle coat.

Solitary walks in the park, like quiet mornings and other markers of late middle age, were still relatively new to Mr. Potter. It really hadn't been so many years since they took their youngest to platform 9 ¾, and those years had been occupied by a fast-paced job and regular owls from- or about- his children. Such owls had once been a constant source of new grey hairs, but lately their contents most often brought pleasant tidings.

Stepping into the biting air, Mr. Potter tried to focus on a park near the ministry. When the dark grey world materialized around him however, he realized that the London park he had apparated to wasn't from a recent memory of a lunchtime stroll.

Cautiously settling on a damp bench, not ready to take in the park or glance down the street, he tilted his head back to observe the empty branches above him. Dark against the lightening sky, they webbed together with neither geometry nor chaos. A breeze played in the upper branches who, dancing solemnly, never formed the same pattern twice. The lowest, largest branches of the ancient oaks held firm and predictable. Mr. Potter mused that they must have cast the same silhouettes for a generation.

A drip splashed onto his upturned face.

He started out of his reverie, and started again at the low bark of laughter, teasing but kind, at his surprise. Though he had been sure he was alone, two old men sat on the park bench across from him. They leaned into each other, black wizard's robes blurring together and their indistinct edges fading into the morning shadows. Thick white hair loose around his shoulders, the laughing man quieted at a nudge from his partner. His grey eyes met Mr. Potters. The man's gaze was familiar and strong, staring fiercely into his soul, though somehow distant and not quite able to reach it. Harry could feel the second, curly haired man's eyes on him as well. His gaze was softer, brushing over Harry with parental kindness, taking in wild hair peppered grey with age, a face only gently wrinkled with smile lines, and the composure of a man who'd seen both great loss and great joy. The curly-haired man glanced down to Harry's ring finger, and the laughing man's grey eyes implored green, a world of questions that couldn't quite be communicated.

Harry started talking. He told the men about his children, he told them about Teddy, he told them about peace. He told them about the massive black dog his son James had rescued and loved so dearly, he told them how his second son practically grew up in the library. He told them how happy his daughter looked as she raced and swooped through the air with her team, and her radiance when she could coax her mother or father to stretch tired joints and dance through the air by her side on a summer afternoon. He told them about Teddy's wedding to a kind, beautiful, and occasionally hilarious muggle. He leaned toward the ancient, curly-haired man and watched auburn eyes glow as he told them about the vibrant and vivacious curly-haired child. He softly told them how Teddy takes the child for walks in the moonlight. He told them about the witch James brings over for dinner, whose brilliance is only matched by her ferocious passion for justice. He smiled as he told them how James worships the ground she walks on. His voice grew deep with pride as he testified to his second son's passion and diligence as he trains to be a healer.

He recounts Christmases surrounded by more family than he can count, and a generation of midsummer evenings passed in camaraderie with old friends. He told them how on occasion, he still owls those he fought beside, and receives in return photos of a generation raised without knowing fear. He shares how much he, they all, still love and miss those they lost.

He told them that when he and Ginny each come home from a long day, he will sit by the fire and she will lay her silver-and-flame head in his lap and the world is quiet. He told the grey-eyed man that he was sorry. He told them both thank you and to carry his love back with them. In no particular order, thirty years of memories flowed from him.

The men were silent; or if they responded, Harry could not hear. They continued to look at him, now wearing matching gazes of warmth. In their eyes, Harry saw stars. He saw open forest and warm touches and magic and torchlit stone walls that protected innocence. Harry felt presences he knew so well and countless he did not recognize but seemed familiar nonetheless and he saw and felt things that he could neither identify nor understand.

Finally tearing his eyes away, he glanced down the street. He could just make out Number Twelve, Grimwauld Place at the end of the block. He swore he saw a flash of two massive canines wrestling on the lawn; one black, one lupine.

When he looked back to the bench, the old men were gone. A drip fell into his lap; this time not from the sky.

"Author's Note: I've never written a fanfic before and I haven't taken a creative writing class in years, so any and all feedback is appreciated! I had read waaaay too many wolfstar fics in the last few months, and they inspired me to finally try something myself. (On that note, I'm also accepting wolfstar fic recommendations!)


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